Last post

No more 2012 stories.

Our new Blog is titled Transient Adventures 2013. That requires a new blog address, and you can find our occasional travel adventure short stories at tonyan2013.blogspot.com

We hope that if we entertained you in 2012 you will become followers of the new blog in 2013.

Happy new year to all!

Sydney pre-Christmas Part 4

The principal reason for our Sydney visit was to be at the wedding of our niece Justine. The ceremony was at St Brigid's the old Catholic Church at the Rocks, and afterwards at the Pavilion near the Art Gallery.
 The bride was of course very beautiful.

 It wasn't a huge event but the guests were multi-cultural: a contingent came from Colombia, and European countries were also represented, as well at least three Australian States.

The couple demonstrated their togetherness with a dance routine they had well prepared for show. On that performance they won't have to rely on their PhDs for a job.

We pray that their well being together may continue as brilliantly as it has begun.

This concludes our 2012 blogging. We plan a relaunch next year with a new name, or at least a new year title.

Sydney Pre-Christmas part 3

On Saturday we took a Sydney ferry up the river to Parramatta (1 hour 'express up and 1.5 hours all stops on the way back). Our $2.50 day excursion ticket covered that, and the train ride from Circular Quay. If there is a better public transport deal than that anywhere in the world we'd like to hear about it. The ferry is a catamaran:

Parramatta seems to close at lunchtime on Saturday but we eventually got a tasty hamburger and cider and strolled through the city to Old Government House Park (Governor Phillip's residence for a little while).

We walked back to the ferry along the river path.

In the evening we ate at Diethnes Greek Restaurant. This was another experience so good that we have again put a separate review on TripAdvisor.

Part 4 (the final episode) will come later.

Sydney pre Christmas part 2

We spent our 3 nights at Sheraton on the Park and were very pleased with the accommodation. I hadn't been there since a partners' conference many years ago when it was the newest luxury hotel in town. It has lost none of its sparkle. In fact it was so good that we decided to review it in TripAdvisor- if interest extends this far it should be posted in the next few days.

We ate at Billy Kwong on Friday night, fulfilling a long held ambition after viewing many Kylie Kwong episodes on TV. The ingredients were Australian, unusual (such as Stir-Fried Organic Old Man Salt Bush Leaves with Young Ginger) and delicious. We had to take a limited time  booking from six o'clock- it's not a place to linger. Pleasing to see the "fair trade" and "make poverty history" stickers on the windows as well as a small charity donation added to the bill.

Sydney pre-Christmas part 1

We spent 3 nights in Sydney at the weekend.
Day one we used to see the Alexander Exhibition at the Australian Museum. This is a collection from the State Hermitage at St Petersburg. We were somewhat underwhelmed, possibly our fault for being under prepared. Many of the exhibits were collations of small things where the curator had not effectively related the object to the title by numbering. Other exhibits were only marginally connected to Alexander from later centuries up to modern times.

More ruminaton on credit card costs and travel

Followers of this intermittent blog may recall our high praise of Citibank when they instantly refunded the price of an airline ticket last March when the airline filed for bankruptcy and shut down- no insurance, a few questions to establish the event, and done!
Then many months later when the card's 5% cash back on BP petrol was withdrawn and we wished to cancel the card, we remarked that there was some reluctance about closing the account, which was less welcome.
After more correspondence this was sorted out in our favour, and today we received a Citibank bank cheque for $25 for our cash back!
Verdict on Citibank- helpful on administration on the whole, and good bank to deal with but we didn't need the card without petrol benefits so...

Now for bank fee cost conscious travel needs - we do like to have a  main card and at least one back up card, so we have a platinum card (offered as a permanent free upgrade) for primary use because it includes gratis full international and limited domestic travel insurance. For backup we have chosen the cheapest Westpac card ($30 for 2), because the big W has international bank arrangements that enable fee free ATM withdrawals in Europe.

We also run an ING debit card account (obtained free) for extra cash overseas if needed, preferring that to various travel cards offered by banks because we can reload it (in AUD)  cost free by web bank transfer from our main bank account.

Brisbane and the Prado

We took  a quick zip to Brisbane mainly to see the "Portrait of Spain: Masterpieces from the Prado" exhibition. Though a small sample, there is enough there to occupy a full afternoon. At the entry there is a trompe l'oeil of what we suppose is the real Prado, which we can't remember much of from our visit to Spain several years ago:

 There are startling royal portraits, this one of Infanta Isabella by Alonso Coello taking the lead:

And intense Christian representations (this by Juan de Valdes Leal):

 as well as remarkable, and for the time possibly dangerous, etchings by Goya:

(This one titled unbridled folly may be given a sexist interpretation.)

We also found Brisbane City more scenic than we expected. I wonder what lies behind landscaping the Courts buildings with a plethora of eyes?

If there are voyeur enthusiasts out there I have uploaded a larger selection of our Brisbane photos to my photo site at
yanton.smugmug.com/Travel/Australia/Brisbane-October-2012